Tears, memories as students, alumni say goodbye to Passaic High

“Soldier Boy,” “Mama Said,” and “Dedicated to the One I Love” are some of the greatest hits of The Shirelles — Passaic High School class of 1957.

But the song most appropriate on the morning of Saturday, June 21 — as the class of 1989 said goodbye to their old school for the last time — might have been one of the group’s lesser-known hits: “The Dance is Over.”

“I have so many fond memories, oh my god,” said Sandra Alvarado of East Rutherford, one of perhaps 100 former students, graduated from this high school 36 years ago to the day, who had come by Saturday morning to take a last look.

“I had a lot of fights,” Alvarado said. “But that’s teenagers.”

She also remembers parties, sleepovers, anniversaries. “We always did everything together,” she said. “And we always kept in touch. This is an epic goodbye. I know we’re all going to cry. It’s bittersweet.”

Parade of goodbyes

For the past year or more, the various classes of Passaic High School have trooped through these halls to say goodbye to their old school. The class of 1989 is the last of them.

Starting in August, the 68-year-old building will be demolished, pending construction of a new school expected to be completed in 2030. Meanwhile, Passaic’s high schoolers will be divided up between three existing schools.

“Where’s the party at?” called out Kyle Monroe, now of Roselle, as the group filed into the cafeteria for a last look.

The same, but not he same. The blue plastic tables and red disc seats — a recent upgrade — were not the ones these students remembered eating their lunches at.

The seats in the auditorium were unfamiliar. So was the color of the lockers — most of them, depending on the floor, now painted red or blue. The school colors. “They were not this color when we were here,” said Shannel Batten of Passaic. “They were brown.”

The more things change

But some things were the same. The New Gym was pretty much its old self. That’s where the juniors and seniors played — as opposed to The Old Gym where the freshmen and sophomores were relegated. Monroe was there now, to bounce a last basketball.

“Playing ball was great here, because the cheerleaders would practice on the side, so we had built-in fans,” he said.

And a Green Room in back of the auditorium is a veritable time capsule.

Actually, it was more a gray room — since the walls were cinderblock. And covering them, floor to ceiling, was graffiti. Mementoes of more than 60 years of student performers.

“At the end of the year, the teacher would allow the students to tag the walls,” said assistant principal Graciella Romero. “To me, this is nostalgia.”

Amy “80.” Terry & Deidre H. “78.” Dave. “72.” So read the scrawled and painted inscriptions. Also, “Lark, 73.” To which someone appended: “Eats moosemeat.” What was that about?

Introducing The Shirelles

It’s in this room that Shirley Owens, Doris Coley, Addie “Micki” Harris and Beverly Lee, the original Shirelles, would have waited before stepping onstage for the 1957 school talent show that led to their signing by Tiara Records.

A plaque in front of the auditorium commemorates the school’s most famous alumni, 1996 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees. “Dedicated to the Ones We Love: THE SHIRELLES,” it reads.

The Shirelles graduated with the school’s first class: 1957. (There were two previous Passaic High Schools). The school, over the years, graduated other celebrities. Running back Craig “Ironhead” Heyward. Safety Jack Tatum. Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court Stuart Jeff Rabner.

But the biggest heroes may be the ordinary kids, many of them from struggling families, who found empowerment, purpose, bonding in these cream-colored hallways. Some 2,400 made up the student body last year.

“I think the place is special because whether you’re from uptown, downtown, or midtown, everybody studied here and everybody’s connected and they’re all family,” said Dr. Sandra “Dio” Montañez-Diodonet, Passaic superintendent of schools.

“They had a teacher they loved, or a special place they connected to,” she said.

The chemistry lab, for instance. Where Monroe once saw a fellow student drop a beaker out of a third-story window. “It was almost like a small explosion,” he said. “Everyone said, ‘What the hell is that?'”

Naturally, he wanted to do it too. Who wouldn’t? “But I wasn’t going to chance it senior year,” he said.

Something for every kid

Some kids here bonded over sports: the rivalry between the Passaic Indians and Clifton Mustangs is the stuff of legend. Others over theater or other afterschool programs.

But the glue that held it all together, said Gouri Sadhwani, is that everyone was striving. “There’s a bond that comes when you have this commonality of struggling,” said Sadhwani, whose parents came to New Jersey when she was 8.

She remembers coming to the school, a “skinny out-of-place Indian girl,” and being afraid she wouldn’t be seen, wouldn’t fit in at a school that — she expected — would be full of “tough” kids.

“It wasn’t like that,” she said.

“The teachers were amazing, they saw something in me that I didn’t see myself,” she recalled. She went on to become deputy executive director for Amnesty International USA and a professor at City University of New York.

“This was the best introduction to America I could have ever had,” she said.

Freshman initiation

The “toughness” of the school, which others remarked on, was mostly veneer. But it could be intimidating to newbies.

Like Keisha Smith, on her first day as a freshman. “”I will never forget my first day of school,” she said. “We were all dressed up: new shoes, new shirt, blue jeans with a fresh crease.”

Parents, naturally, wanted their kids to make a good impression the first day. What they — and their unfortunate children — didn’t know is that new clothes are a giveaway. It’s how the upperclassmen spot a fledgling.

“They were all saying, ‘Fresh meat! Fresh meat!’ ” she recalled. She was later told that “Fresh Meat” was the local vernacular for freshman. It was not a compliment.

“Second day, I dressed in my sweats, as casual as possible,” said Smith, now a Paterson resident. “But we were marked. We spent our first month in hell.”

But time has its revenge. The next fall, it was Smith who was yelling out “Fresh Meat! Fresh Meat!” to the incoming class.

“I did it to the freshmen the next year,” she confessed.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: A final farewell to Passaic High School before wrecking ball